although Mr. Balfour had declared at
Manchester in 1899--"Unless the University question can be settled
Unionism is a failure."

Mr. F.H. Dale, an English Inspector of Schools, who, in the last couple
of years, has produced two comprehensive blue books on the state of
primary and secondary education in Ireland, declared that he found the
desire for higher education in Ireland greater than in England; but in
spite of this, so far, neither British party has advanced one step in
the direction of a permanent solution, pleading as excuse that the fear
of strengthening the hands of the priests blocks the way, albeit a
university under predominatingly lay control is all that even the
hierarchy in Ireland demand; while to add to the groundlessness on which
intolerance is based the only institution of a satisfactory kind which
is endowed by the State is a Jesuit College supported by what one can
only call circuitous means.

Mr. Balfour himself has admitted that no Protestant parent could
conscientiously send his son to a college which was as Catholic as
Trinity is Protestant. If Oxford and Cambridge had been founded by
foreign Catholics for the express purpose of destroying the Protestant
religion in England, a thirty years' abolition of tests, which in no
sense affected their "atmosphere," would not have overcome the prejudice
and scruples persisting against them.

The vicious circles round which Irish questions rotate is nowhere seen
more clearly than in this connection. When complaint is made that a
disproportionately small number of Catholics hold high appointments in
the public offices in Ireland, the reply is made that the number of
members of that Church with high educational qualifications is small;
when demands are made for facilities for higher education, the
reluctance of English people to publicly endow sectarian education is
urged as an excuse, although Irishmen have not, since Trinity abolished
tests, made any demands for a purely sectarian University or College.

I have shown how, as a result of our aloofness from both English
parties, we find ourselves between the upper and the nether millstones,
and in what way in regard to the University question the old error which
for so long obstructed the land question is at work--mean the error of
denying reform for English reasons and endeavouring to force English
doctrines into the law and government of Ireland and of suppressing
Irish customs and Irish ideas.

On